THE WHITE RAT AND THE MAZE PROBLEM 15 



resembles this in main outlines but the automatic period is 

 greatly extended. Curves plotted with one minute as the unit 

 of time do not reveal really significant fluctuations since the 

 maze can be run in ten seconds. An increase of ten or twenty 

 seconds scarcely shows on the curve, although the rats are taking 

 two or three times longer to run. The end of a graph, in which 

 one trial is the unit, has been magnified and the last ten runs 

 of the fifty are revealed in a more significant fashion (Figs. 4 

 and 5). The time curve for the normal maze is considerably 

 lower than that for the black- white maze. The records show 

 that the average speed of the last five trials of the rats in the 

 normal maze is ten seconds better than the speed of the rats in 

 the black- white maze for the corresponding trials. 



Thus the evidence, from the behavior notes, from typical 

 individuals, from the average speed in the first trials without 

 error, from the actual speed of individual animals in the true 

 path, from the numerical results and plotted curves, confirms 

 the original assertion. Rats in the black- white maze, in experi- 

 ments continued long past the learning period, maintain a slower 

 speed than rats in the normal maze. The significance or cause 

 of this will be discussed later. We will now consider the criterion 

 of accuracy. 



ACCURACY 



One of the first things to attract the attention of the observer 

 who was watching these experiments day by day was the very 

 few errors which were made. No one who had had any experi- 

 ence with other mazes could fail to be impressed by it. A number 

 of animals made their way around several times without error on 

 the second trial. They went slowly, to be sure, but accurately. 

 There were no signs of marked avoidance but neither was there 

 any evidence of direct discrimination. Slow as these animals 

 were they did not enter many cut de sacs. If a rat by chance 

 entered one of these blind alleys it did not seem in any hurry 

 to get out but neither did it linger in it. One rather expected 

 that the rats would tend to hide or tarry in the side-paths, 

 especially when the covered ways were the cut de sacs. 



The accuracy was apparent from the very beginning and was 

 not a virtue of slow growth. Whatever influence was at work 

 it was there from the first. The rats on the normal maze made 



